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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

The District 2 election saga continues

So I pick up today's Miami Herald at my doorstep, yes, I still read it the old fashioned way, and I see the top headline is "Only votes for Russell to count in Nov 17 election."

According to City Attorney Victoria Mendez, the law states that the election must go on, but all votes for Teresa Sarnoff will not count and any votes that Ken Russell receives will go to him.It sort of reminds me of that special deal that the Miami Parking Authority has every year where you get a free extended period of parking around the holidays when you go over your metered time, so of course you just need to put five or 10 minutes worth of parking into the meter and you get an hour and five or 10 minutes of parking.

Same here. Ken only needs one vote to win.From the Herald: 'The city is 'bound by Florida Supreme Court precedent and Florida election procedures requiring that any votes for Teresa Sarnoff not be counted,' stated the opinion, prepared by assistant city attorney Forrest Andrews."Herald story hereand in the printed newspaper at the top of page one.

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7 Comments:

Anonymous said...

This makes BELOW ZERO sense, at all. Are they freaking insane? And we put up with the sheer and utter nonsense. Legalize drugs, might as well.

We all know that Mayor Manny Diaz tried to buy the election by raising huge sums from developers for his chosen candidate and Marc tried to the same for Teresa. Fortunately most citizens where too smart to fall for that trick in both cases. Please don’t try to kid us that Teresa was just trying to save the taxpayer $100K when she gallantly bowed out of the run-off. The Sarnoff’s decision to concede before the run-off election was simply a Face Saving maneuver to provide a bit of damage control to the fiasco they created. They would have been more respected and saved us a great deal of money, time and aggravation if Teresa had never campaigned and Marc had departed City Hall with a bit of dignity.

Who’s responsible for Miami’s never-ending concrete pour?It looks like another bizarre election in the City of Miami is coming to a close. Every eight years or so, the city has a very weird election cycle that really means something, like trying to get rid of another crook who is trying to get elected to the city commission.Eight years ago we had a city employee and Mayor Manny Diaz crony, Linda Haskins, hand-picked to run for a commission seat so Diaz could continue feeding his money machine, funded by developers.Fortunately for us, we rejected Haskins and instead got Coconut Grove activist Marc Sarnoff. It seemed like a good idea -- at the time. Haskins and her campaign spent about $165 for each vote she got in the runoff. It was an outrageous number, but who cared? Those developers have lots of money.Sarnoff was good for a few years, until he discovered the Diaz developer money machine. Everything went to hell in a handbasket, and the east side of Miami began to resemble a never-ending concrete pour.Sarnoff is term-limited and can’t run again. He came up with the novel idea (well, maybe not so novel) of having his wife run for his seat. He had the money and the contacts. And after she won the election, he could control her seat in Miami and could run for a county commission seat next year, when county Commissioner Xavier Suarez runs for mayor. He could control all of the wealthy east side of Miami-Dade County.The cash poured in to her campaign. By official count, she had more than $500,000 in the bank two months before the election. Sources tell me she will have more than a million dollars before it’s all over. I can believe that.So if that turns out to be true, and the turnout guesstimate is in the 4000 range, and Ms. Sarnoff wins with 2000 votes, it will cost her husband and his developer friends $500 per vote to get her elected. Must be a hell of a lot of money in those condos.And all this money is being spent on a person who has had no experience in the public sector, no experience in the private sector -- actually no experience in any sector.Ms. Sarnoff’s campaign brochures are mostly mindless drivel that political hacks have been using for years: reduce crime, improve transportation, more parks. She has one difference, though: animal rights. Nothing said about people rights.The Sarnoff BS flyers are almost like the ones that Haskins used eight years ago. They work pretty well on brain-dead people, not so well for people who can think.One other good thing you can do for your campaign is to have your picture taken with some police officers. No problem. The good Commissioner Sarnoff was kind enough to make sure the police pension program was enhanced. The police were only too happy to be photographed with her -- in uniform.

Just a second! City Attorney Victoria Mendez represented The City of Miami as an assistant city attorney in CRISTINA & JOBIE STEPPE vs. The City of Miami. Succinctly, Victoria blew a hearing causing the City to spend about $800.000.00, related to this lawsuit, which City lost. When I learned she was City Attorney I was awed that such a seemingly inexperienced incompetent achieved such a position! The Herald story stated all votes would be counted and everyone would have access to said votes. If Ken voters stay home and Sarnoff votes appear in numbers, she could easily claim to be the winner. In other words, who cares what Victoria writes in an opinion as it's only an opinion. If all you folks have been correct and the Sarnoff's are indeed corrupt and in with developers, who would care and who could overturn a claim to victory if Sarnoff is elected!? Get out and vote for Ken. Jobie Steppe

Hey guys, the more I read articles and comments, the more is becomes clear that district 2 residents (long-time) are fed-up with high rise development. This must be addressed immediately by the powers to be. Miami 21, originally a good idea, has fallen victim to big money from developers. Enough of this! We should declare a two year moratorium on projects that have not yet been approved and rework all the loopholes that are being used to ignore the purpose of Miami 21. I am 100% sure Ken Russell is very much aware of this problem, and whether he agrees or not, we expect him to do what his constituents have put him in office to do. To give ALL current residents and business of District 2 a voice in curbing the over development of our district.

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